- NYC: Man in custody after setting off “incendiary device” outside federal building
Source: ABC News
“A man with a history of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity set off an ‘incendiary device’ outside a Manhattan federal building that houses an immigration court, authorities said. Video captured the moment the suspect poured a liquid and then ignited it outside 26 Federal Plaza, sparking a massive fire. FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle said the suspect used fireworks to set the blaze. Two people — a federal employee and a civilian — suffered minor injuries and were treated and released, officials said.” (07/20/26)
https://abcnews.com/US/man-custody-after-setting-off-incendiary-device-federal/story?id=134916208
- Pentagon Withheld Dozens of US Military Injuries in Iran War
Source: New York Times
“In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against U.S. forces in the country. Those attacks injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted. … Central Command is not required to release information about injured service members, especially when they quickly return to duty, a U.S. military official said. Moreover, another U.S. military official added, why would the Pentagon divulge information that could help Iran zero in on its deadly ballistic missiles and drone attacks …. Central Command has also stopped announcing how many sites in Iran it hits each day for the same reason, U.S. officials say.” (07/20/26)
- Yemen: Houthis declare naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, widening threat to global oil supplies
Source: NBC News
“Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, a move that opens a new front against the United States in its war on Iran and widens the threat to global energy supplies and trade beyond the Gulf. Iran had pressed the Houthis to close the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea if the U.S. continued to attack Iranian power infrastructure. … The full closure of the Bab el-Mandeb strait would reduce global oil supply by 7% as it would leave most of Saudi oil exports unable to leave the region. The disruption would add to the massive cut to global oil flows from the war in the Gulf, which has already reduced shipments by 10% of global supply.” (07/20/26)
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/yemen-houthis-maritime-embargo-saudi-arabia-oil-rcna588345
- Tipster charged with murder after police say anonymous call helped solve 30-year disappearance
Source: Fox News
“More than 30 years after an Alaska man vanished without a trace, an anonymous confession breathed new life into the cold case and ultimately led investigators to the alleged killer. Christopher Popps, 54, of Michigan, was arrested after Alaska State Troopers said they traced the confession back to him, accusing him of fatally shooting his former co-worker, Patrick Orville Dearth, in 1993 before dumping his body inside a barrel off a remote highway. … The breakthrough came on Jan. 22, 2025, when Alaska State Troopers received an anonymous tip from someone claiming to have committed a murder in the Fairbanks area in 1993, according to the agency. … they found human remains inside a barrel down a steep embankment near Mile 47 of the Steese Highway. The Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office later identified the remains as Dearth and ruled his death a homicide. As investigators dug deeper, they identified the anonymous tipster as Popps.” (07/20/26)
- Dying for Nothing
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“Seventeen military personnel have died in President Trump’s war on Iran. Compared to the 58,200 military personnel who were killed in the Vietnam War, that’s not a large number … well, unless one happens to be among those 17 or among their friends or family members. In that case, 17 becomes an extremely large number. But there is one thing in common between those 58,200 military personnel who died in the Vietnam War and those 17 military personnel who have died in Trump’s war on Iran: They all died for nothing. No, they didn’t died for their country. No, they didn’t die defending our freedom. No, they didn’t die to make the world safe for democracy. They died for nothing.” (07/20/26)
- Is It Really Socialism?
Source: Liberalism.org
by Matt Zwolinski“So socialism is back, and the commentary has arranged itself in the usual formation. On the right, alarm: the reds are at the gates. On the left, a banner: the future has arrived. What is striking is how little of the excitement and the horror attaches to anything the new mayors actually propose. The same rent freeze, the same municipal grocery, would pass almost unnoticed under another name. It is the word that thrills the one side and frightens the other, and so the question everyone hurries to argue is a question about the word. Is this really socialism, or just New Deal liberalism with sharper slogans? Does a city-owned grocery store cross the line, or is it ordinary municipal housekeeping? The fixation is a mistake, and an instructive one.” (07/20/26)
- Suing Stephen Miller
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko“It’s time to put everyone from Stephen Miller and Tom Homan to the most recent ICE hire on notice: a reckoning is coming.” (07/20/26)
- The Odyssey has transcended the culture war
Source: spiked
by Maren Thom“Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a commercial and artistic triumph, opening to widespread critical acclaim and collecting $264million in global ticket sales during its opening weekend. Indeed, it is reassuring that Hollywood still has some artistry and ambition left in it. But alongside the legitimate plaudits, the film’s juggernaut success has produced two other, more philistine reactions. The liberal left is relieved. After months of controversy over the supposedly woke casting, the film has received ecstatic reviews and attracted huge audiences, leading progressives to declare victory. … Much of the right is furious for precisely the same reason. Having condemned The Odyssey before seeing it, the anti-woke warriors cannot forgive it for being magnificent.” (07/20/26)
- Flag on the play: First Amendment problems with NIL regulation
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Amuda Balu“NIL agreements are about more than money. They are also about expression. Student athletes earn compensation by appearing in advertisements, promoting products on social media, and publicly associating themselves with brands. These activities therefore qualify as speech, which receives First Amendment protection. Yet many of our current state and university NIL laws do not seem to withstand constitutional scrutiny. Two types of common restrictions in particular are concerning: restrictions for contracts in vice industries and those relating to institutional values.” (07/20/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/flag-play-first-amendment-problems-nil-regulation
- Trump Is Ready for All-Out War in Iran. There’s Just One Catch.
Source: The New Republic
by Edith Olmsted“Forget writing a check you can’t cash; President Donald Trump is escalating a war that the U.S. military can’t wage. Trump has made it more than clear that he’s done negotiating with Tehran, after the U.S. military launched yet another wave of strikes against Iran Saturday in retribution for the deaths of at least two U.S. military service members in Jordan. … ‘The U.S. is planning for a wider war,’ one U.S. official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post Monday. The official warned that U.S. military operations would be kneecapped by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions, as well as widespread damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East. ‘We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,’ the official added.” (07/20/26)
https://newrepublic.com/post/213240/donald-trump-war-iran-weapons-stockpile
- Fearing Justice: Rubio Gets Bolshie About the ICC
Source: CounterPunch
by Binoy Kampmark“Why are they so afraid? The Trump administration, pathologically obsessed about the exaggerated reach of the International Criminal Court, have decided to take to the barricades. In a July 13 media note released by a spokesperson for the US State Department, something akin to a declaration of war was made against the Hague-based tribunal. … The late Henry Kissinger, who argued most stridently against the establishment of such a criminal court, would no doubt have approved. He, more than most, would have feared some eventual accounting for his own egregious crimes against international humanitarian law while serving the White House.” (07/20/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/20/fearing-justice-rubio-gets-bolshie-about-the-icc/
- California’s Road to Serfdom
Source: Law & Liberty
by Marc Wheat & Mitchell Bahnsen“Several years ago, California brothers Arron and Arthur Benedetti inherited 267 acres of farmland from their father, a turkey farmer who spent his life working that land. They were not asking for a subsidy, tax break, or any government benefit. They simply wanted to build a home on property they had lawfully inherited. The government of Marin County, however, took it upon itself to say that the brothers could have their permit, but only if they signed a covenant permanently committing the land to commercial agricultural use, farming it themselves, or contracting it out in perpetuity. … Even though the brothers have a strong incentive to take good care of the land they own, building a home and living on what their father built is, apparently, not among the options Marin County is prepared to allow.” (07/20/26)
- Privacy-Minded Fashion Aims To Baffle Facial Recognition
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“With shoplifting a serious concern, and given the declining cost of security equipment, it’s no surprise that grocery stores in California are rolling out facial recognition technology to identify known thieves when they step through the door. Software-backed cameras that match people’s faces to their names are increasingly ubiquitous at airports, stores, and on the street, spelling the potential end to anonymity in public places. The end, that is, unless people take advantage of gear and tactics designed to confuse facial recognition tech.” (07/20/26)
https://reason.com/2026/07/20/privacy-minded-fashion-aims-to-baffle-facial-recognition/
- The everyday injustices of the plea bargain
Source: The Hill
by Austin Sarat“Plea deals, in which defendantsagrees to give up their right to a trial and other rights in exchange for a reduction in charges or a sentence, are the grease that keeps the wheels of justice turning in the American legal system. The American Bar Association’s Plea-Bargaining Task Force explains that ‘some jurisdictions have not had a criminal trial in many years.’ But it wasn’t always this way. The explosion of plea bargaining in this country has been facilitated by a series of Supreme Court decisions that have given prosecutors wide latitude to offer inducements and make threats to get defendants to waive their right to trial. This year, on June 18, the court took a step to curb one of the most serious injustices in the plea-bargaining system, while ignoring its everyday injustices and the damage it does.” (07/20/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/supreme-court/5975151-scotus-hunter-v-united-states/
- Robin Hood in Reverse: How the Pentagon Makes Us Poorer
Source: Inequality.org
by Danaka Katovich“In an era of high prices for fuel, food, and housing, an extra $4,000 could make a life-saving difference for many families. But instead, that’s what the average household had to shell out for the Pentagon last year. That’s right: The average U.S. taxpayer in 2025 had over $4,000 taken out of their paychecks to fund the Pentagon, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. In the coming years, that amount is set to rise as Congress considers a $1.5 trillion war budget for 2027. For the growing number of working poor in the United States, that money can mean the difference between making rent or falling behind, or between being able to afford an emergency trip to the doctor or going without care.” (07/20/26)
https://inequality.org/article/robin-hood-in-reverse-how-the-pentagon-makes-us-poorer/
- Zhuangzi and the Original Case Against the State
Source: Students For Liberty
by Hein Htet Kyaw“Zhuangzi, sometimes referred as Zhuang Zhou, remains one of history’s most fundamentally subversive thinkers. As a writer in the chaotic period of Warring States of ancient China around the 4th century, Zhuangzi positioned himself not as a revolutionary for the improvement of government but as an opponent to the idea of such an entity altogether. Instead of giving his opinion on how the governing body could be improved, he tore apart the legitimacy of its authority by means of sarcastic criticism aimed primarily at Confucianism. He maintained that the desire to rule is the main evil of mankind, which destroys the whole hierarchy of power within the ruling elite. The other philosophers of his era attempted to offer advice to the kings on how to manage their states, but Zhuangzi considered the rulers themselves to be one of the major sources of chaos in the world.” (07/20/26)
https://studentsforliberty.org/blog/zhuangzi-and-the-original-case-against-the-state/
- Revolutionary Optimism Takes Practice
Source: Caitlin Johnstone
by Caitlin Johnstone“Revolutionary optimism is a skill that you learn over time. Like any other skill, it takes practice to get good at it. Like any other skill, it can seem very difficult when you first start trying.” (07/20/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/07/20/revolutionary-optimism-takes-practice/
- Trump Uses NATO Summit to Reinforce Mercantilist Policy
Source: The Daily Economy
by Doug Bandow“NATO members are finally taking more responsibility for their own defense. Using those security commitments to squeeze trading partners threatens markets and undermines diplomacy.” (07/20/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/trump-uses-nato-summit-to-reinforce-mercantilist-policy/
- Reason Roundtable, 07/20/26
Source: Reason
“Is the War in Iran Spiraling Out of Control?” (07/20/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/07/20/is-the-war-in-iran-spiraling-out-of-control/
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 07/20/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Calling it a ‘lab leak’ makes the story feel tidy, but the real scandal might be the system that makes lab-origin disasters plausible in the first place. We sit down with independent journalist Sam Husseini to unpack gain-of-function research, why ‘potentially pandemic pathogens’ are funded and defended, and how a small circle of incentives, prestige, and national security framing can turn high-risk virology into business as usual.” (07/20/26)
- Rising, 07/20/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on NYC DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo suggesting that government-run grocery stores may be a better alternative to small businesses.” (07/20/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 07/20/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Trump Escalates Iran War As More Soldiers Die.” (07/20/26)